Politics Daily

U.N. Climate Chief Leaving in Wake of Disappointing Summit in Denmark

Tom Diemer — 2010-02-18T09:18:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Bush Administration, Barack Obama, Environment, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Energy

Two months after a disappointing summit on global warming in Copenhagen, the head of the United Nations climate change office, Yvo de Boer, has resigned to take a consultant's job, Reuters reports.

In another blow to the effort to address global-warming issues, de Boer is leaving on July 1 to join KPMG, a consultancy group.

"Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming," de Boer said in a parting statement. "This calls for new partnerships with the business sector to help make this happen."

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Forget Bipartisanship

Jill Lawrence — 2010-02-14T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Bush Administration, Senate, Democrats, Republicans, Barack Obama, John McCain, Economy, Health Care, Al Gore, Congress, Campaigns, Liberals, Moderates, Unemployment

Once we get past the televised health care summit later this month at the White House, could President Obama and both parties please take a break from their relentless poll-driven rhetoric about "bipartisanship"? It's not priority one for Republicans, it shouldn't be for Democrats, it's not realistic in many cases, and so far it's been about as productive as going on a unicorn hunt.

I'm not saying bipartisanship is a bad thing. If anyone has the urge to be bipartisan, go right ahead. GOP senators could stick a toe into bipartisan territory by supporting a modest jobs bill. Democrats could add a dash of malpractice reform to their health bills.

But after 13 months of talk without much action, let's not kid ourselves about how far this is going to go. Republicans up to now have been unwilling to work with this White House even in areas where both parties agree -- most recently on a commission to find ways to reduce federal spending and the deficit. And that approach is likely to continue as long as it works.

See Jill Lawrence, Melinda Henneberger, Patricia Murphy, Lynn Sweet and Bonnie Erbe discuss the current congressional gridlock in this week's Woman UP video. And read Patricia's analysis of the Democrats' problems and what their effect may be on President Obama's agenda.

Uniting in opposition to all of Obama's major agenda items and blocking dozens of his nominees is proving a boon for Republicans. A new wave of polls shows the public split between Obama and a generic Republican presidential candidate in 2012 and evenly divided on this fall's House elections, and the parties nearly even on favorability ratings. That's quite a shift toward the out-party after two dispiriting election cycles.

Sure, there are signs in a few polls that the public is starting to blame Republicans more than Obama for gridlock on Capitol Hill. Yet in a new Quinnipiac poll, two-thirds blame it on both parties and come down harder on Democrats. Asked to choose the statement closer to their view, 37 percent said the GOP was misusing the filibuster to tie up the Senate and 46 percent said Democrats were pushing bills without considering Republican viewpoints.

Obama and the Democrats were already trying to cope with 9.7 percent unemployment and GOP recalcitrance when Scott Brown won a special Senate election in Massachusetts. Republicans now have an "unstoppable 41-vote super-minority," Stephen Colbert said, neatly capturing and parodying the Democrats' trauma over Brown's victory. Democrats also seem to be spooked by polls that show the public decrying partisanship and bickering -- and yet, what else is new? In the meantime they are failing to use what considerable power they have from holding both the presidency and Congress.

Memo to Democrats: Brown got 1.2 million votes, Obama got 69 million. In fact, Obama won 9 million more votes than Republican John McCain. That's quite a mandate, especially after George W. Bush's ascent to the presidency after losing the popular vote to Al Gore by half a million votes. Bush not only acted as if he had a mandate to enact his campaign agenda, Democrats helped him do it! There were Democratic votes for tax cuts, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Iraq invasion, and an unfunded Medicare expansion. Were those Democrats chumps? Maybe. They helped Bush look like a strong leader. That's a "mistake" Republicans aren't making with Obama.

So what are the options for Democrats? They could wait and see if Republicans decide they need some accomplishments going into the fall. Or Obama could move away from the whole conflict-avoidance, bipartisan, consensus-building schtick. Hardball worked pretty well when he threatened Senate Republican leaders with recess appointments -- which don't need confirmation -- unless they stopped blocking votes on more than five dozen nominees to jobs in his administration. Within two days there were votes on 29 people and 28 were confirmed.

The other big area where Democrats hold the power is health reform. It's hard to overstate the pointlessness of giving up after both chambers have passed historic bills and negotiators are working out ways to merge them. Almost all the Democrats in Congress supported a health bill and are going to have to defend their votes, whether a health bill becomes law or not. Would they rather defend a sweeping new law that has many popular and forward-looking elements, or be forced to fight at least three separate GOP charges - that they backed a bad plan, that they were too incompetent to even get it done, and that the Republicans saved the country from a socialist government takeover? There are strong arguments against the first and third points, but what's the rebuttal to the second one?

Obviously it would be a lot easier to sell an accomplishment. And while many Democrats have accepted the grim conventional wisdom on health care, there are lots of ways to read the polls. For instance, 58 percent in a recent Gallup poll said Obama has spent either the right amount of time or too little time on health care. People trust Obama and Democrats more than congressional Republicans to handle health care. Nearly two-thirds in a Washington Post-ABC News poll said Congress should keep working on a comprehensive bill and only 26 percent in a Pew poll said Congress should give up on reform. Specific elements of the House and Senate bills, meanwhile, continue to win majority support while objections tend to be general -- such as they are too complicated.

People would probably feel more positive about the bills if they had some GOP support. On the other hand, how important is the process in the end? I doubt seniors who get prescription drug benefits through Medicare remember that Republicans jammed the program through by lowballing its cost, failing to fund it, and keeping a House vote open for an unprecedented three hours of arm-twisting. People were wary of the benefit -- too confusing, they said -- but it's now popular and more evidence that results trump process, even an ugly process.

Here's another piece of evidence for Democrats to consider. In 2007, Gallup found that only 18 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was doing its job. So they asked a simple open-ended question to those who disapproved: Why? Two-thirds of them, amounting to nearly half of all Americans, pointed to inaction of some form, either generally or on specific issues such as ending the Iraq war. As it happens, congressional approval declined six points in the past month and is now at the same abysmal 18 percent.

Passage of health reform, imperfect as any bill inevitably will be, would constitute action on a historic scale. It would also be a useful reminder to everyone that elections have consequences. Or at least they're supposed to.

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Palin's Favorability Numbers Improve

Bruce Drake — 2009-12-07T13:30:00+00:00

Filed under: John Edwards, Al Gore, Polls, Sarah Palin, Poll Watch

Maybe it's her book tour, or the fact that recent polls have shown majorities saying the press has treated her unfairly, but Sarah Palin's favorability numbers improved in the latest poll by CNN/Opinion Research, with those that see her in a positive or negative light matched evenly at 46 percent each, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted Dec. 2-3. Ten percent had no opinion and 6 percent say they never heard of her (!!!!!!).

In October, Palin was seen unfavorably by 52 percent of Americans and favorably by 42 percent. Last July, that negative ratio was 48 percent to 39 percent.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is seen unfavorably by 53 percent and favorably by 39 percent, with 2 percent expressing no opinion and 5 percent saying they did not know him. The high point in terms of those who saw Cheney unfavorably was 61 percent in August 2008.

Former Democratic senator and presidential candidate John Edwards predictably suffered a huge turn to the negative after he admitted an extramarital affair and faced accusations that he tried to cover it up. In July, 2008, he was seen favorably by 59 percent and unfavorably by 25 percent with the balance expressing no opinion. Now, he is regarded unfavorably by 47 percent and favorably by 30 percent.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent aligned with the Democrats, is seen favorably by 40 percent and unfavorably by 28 percent, with the balance either not having heard of him or having no opinion.

Vice President Joseph Biden is seen favorably by 47 percent and unfavorably by 36 percent with the rest having no opinion or not having heard of him. Former Vice President Al Gore has a 52 percent to 42 percent favorable-to-unfavorable ratio with the balance expressing no opinion.

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Laura Ling, Euna Lee and Bill Clinton: Welcome Home to the TV Feeding Frenzy

Bob Franken — 2009-08-05T09:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Media, Terror, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, National Security, International

Pity the poor bookers. In the TV world, bookers are the desperate souls sent by unreasonably demanding producers to engage in the cutthroat competition for primo guests on news or talk shows. In this case, they're prima: Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

Now that the two American journalists have been pried from their future of North Korean hard labor, the next tough job will be fending off all the shows that want them first.

It's not uncommon for the aforementioned bookers to try crying or begging. They will often sob something like, "If I don't get you, I'll lose my job." (By the way, they say that because their nasty bosses have told them so.)

Normally, there's a pecking order: "60 Minutes" or maybe "Oprah Winfrey" start with a slight advantage, simply because of their huge audiences. "Oprah" probably has the edge in this knife fight, because of bloodlines: Laura Ling is the sister of Lisa Ling, who's a regular on the show.

Laura and Lisa, remember them? They have probably already hired a public relations person who makes a great living maneuvering through these treacherous waters. These PR specialists know that the morning shows are also in the hunt.

They can expect "Today" and "GMA" to come a-calling, with "The Early Show" on CBS struggling to catch up (in more ways than one). Lagging way behind, viewer-wise, are the cable shows. More often than not, "Larry King Live" gets sloppy seconds, although his program may get special treatment here because it was the venue for Ling's family to go public with her plight in May.

After King, it's not unusual for the other shows within each cable network to battle each other for whatever news value the guests have left.

This is an unusual case: Ling and Lee worked for Current TV, the youth news outlet. So Current may be their first stop. Co-founders Al Gore (yes that Al Gore) and Joel Hyatt released a statement saying they were "overjoyed" at the journalists' release. (Disclosure: Gore and I have gone to some of the same social gatherings; Hyatt is a longtime personal friend.)

We haven't even gotten to former President Clinton yet. He's a hot property again. Advantage: "60 Minutes." They have a history. Don't expect him to appear with Hillary, though. That was sooooo 1992. This is now. Too bad. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton acknowledges a central role in this.

Once we get past the scramble for television bragging rights, there might still be some room for serious thinking about the significance of this.

First though: Is it me or does that picture of an unsmiling Clinton and Kim Jong-Il posing together look like a 21st-century version of Grant Wood's "American Gothic"?

While Bill Clinton's involvement in all this was not officially official, he is a former president. That's gotta mean something. Furthermore, his entourage included several people with semi-connections to the Obama administration.

It is possible that both sides took advantage of this situation to cool down the dangerous anger that had come to define U.S.-North Korea relations. Does this clear a path toward some sort of bilateral dealmaking?

Don't expect President Obama to invite Kim Jong-Il to the White House for a beer anytime soon, particularly since Kim is known to prefer sipping a fine wine -- while his country starves. But discreet moves away from the nuclear brink may be a logical next step.

The immediate attention is on Laura Ling and Euna Lee. They and their families are obviously thrilled they're home, even if they return to the booker buzz saw.

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White House: Bill Clinton's Trip to N. Korea is 'Solely Private Mission'

Patricia Murphy — 2009-08-04T07:11:00+00:00

Filed under: Al Gore, Obama Administration, National Security, The Capitolist

On Tuesday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs released a statement calling former President Bill Clinton's trip to North Korea a "solely private mission," saying, "While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment. We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton's mission."

The statement came following news last night that Bill Clinton had arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea, to negotiate the release of two American journalists recently sentenced to 12 years of "hard labor" after being convicted of "committing hostilities against Korea and illegal entry."

The New York Times reports that the former president flew yesterday to North Korea in an unmarked jet and was greeted on the Pyongyang tarmac by both a young Korean girl, bearing a bouquet of white flowers, as well as North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan. The presence of the negotiator raised hopes that Clinton would also be able to open a dialogue about the North's escalating nuclear program. In May, the government conducted its second nuclear test and then launched several ballistic missiles. The journalists' capture was seen as a part of an overall campaign to force the West into engagement.

The Korean Herald reports that although the two journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, worked for Al Gore's Current TV network, the North Koreans rejected Gore as a possible envoy. It also reports that although North Korea has refused to participate in the "six-party talks" designed to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, the North indicted in July that it wanted to deal directly with the United States in talks and that Ban Ki Moon, the secretary general of the U.N. and a South Korean diplomat, urged bilateral talks.

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton has worked to secure amnesty and the release of Ling and Lee, but she has not commented on her husband's mission. She is currently traveling in Africa.

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Why Dems Should Worry About GOP Primary (Even if Obama Wins in 2012)

Matt Lewis — 2009-04-17T09:56:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Bush Administration, Democrats, Republicans, Al Gore, Obama Administration

It was not Cindy Sheehan -- or Abu Graib -- or Hurricane Katrina -- that first exposed the once seemingly-Teflon George W. Bush's many vulnerabilities to the public, driving his popularity ratings to the basement, never again to return.

Instead, the seminal moment when came with the arrival of an obscure governor from Vermont named Howard Dean on the national scene. This is not widely appreciated or understood.

Whereas 2002 belonged to George W. Bush, 2003 clearly belonged to Dean. He dominated political news that year.

This was laregly due to the unorthodox campaign he ran. Dean, being a relatively unknown governor, could not have plausibly won by employing a traditional campaign against the likes of Lieberman, Kerry, and Edwards (Dean didn't win anyway, but he might have) -- so he employed a more risky strategy of focusing -- not on his Democratic opponents -- but on the opposing party's incumbent president.

This seemed crazy.

While his opponents were playing it safe, Dean -- representing the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" -- quickly gained the support of bloggers and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. While the other gun-shy Democrats -- who had been battered and beaten up by conservatives in the wake of 9-11 -- were avoiding direct confrontation with Bush, a perfect niche opened up. And only a candidate -- who wasn't supposed to win anyway -- could exploit it.

(Note: The Dean model leads me to wonder if it will take an outsider -- who hasn't been battered by the liberal machine -- to lead conservatives to the promised land -- or, at least, to begin the process as Dean did).

Dean's surprising success shocked his Democratic rivals into imitating his rhetoric and co-opting his message. And because he actually got away with it, without much push-back, Dean emboldened others to follow him (politicians tend to dip their toes in, and if they don't get bitten off, they go in deeper). As a result of Dean, the 2003 primary campaign transformed into a contest largely based on Democrats attempting to one-up each other in bashing George W. Bush.'

Still, this should not have mattered. Incumbent presidents usually benefit from primary battles and internecine squabbles on the other side. And it is worth noting that Bush did go on to defeat John Kerry the very next year. But the damage had been done. Once the chink in Bush's armor was exposed, others were emboldened to pile on. The Bush narrative had been changed forever, and narratives are hard to reverse. Despite winning in 2004, Bush never really recovered from 2003.

To be sure, it wasn't merely Dean's attacks, in and of themselves, that did Bush in -- Bush was his own worst enemy. It was his "above the fray" mentality that is really to blame. Just as he has recently said that Barack Obama "deserves my silence" (as Obama continues to bash his head in) -- back in '03, Bush seemed to think the Democrats "deserved his silence" while they campaigned for the Democratic nomination. Nobody bothered to ask...why?

As CNN reported,

For months, Bush tried to remain above the political fray, enjoy the benefits of being an uncontested incumbent and wait to formally declare his candidacy.

Politics, Bush said at a news conference in July 2003, will come "later on." For now, "I will continue doing my job. And my job will be to work to make America more secure."

While Bush has mentioned national security as a priority in his re-election bid, he also has acknowledged that the economy needs attention.

"The American people will decide whether or not I deserve a second term," Bush told reporters in May 2003. "In the meantime I am focusing my attention today on ... helping people find work. And that's where I'm going to be for a while."

It is unclear to me whether the disastrous political mistake of staying 'above the fray' was an honorable, yet naive, aristocratic thing -- or simply the arrogance of someone who has never had to fight for anything and thinks he cannot lose.

Regardless, by failing to respond to the attacks begun by Dean (politicians should leave no shot unanswered, so goes the famous maxim), Bush allowed the negative screed to define him.

So what can be learned from Bush's unbelievable political mistake? Republicans campaigning for the GOP nomination should follow the Dean model and focus their energies -- not on each other -- but on Barack Obama.

And Barack Obama should learn that it would be a mistake to remain quiet during the Republican Primary.

It is unlikely he would do this anyway. So far, Obama has proven that he understands the importance of knocking-down narratives before they get away from him. And his surrogates have been willing to wade into the fray and take on conservatives like Rush Limbaugh. It's also likely that a kid who had to fight and scratch to make it to the top has a keener understanding of the importance of fighting to stay there ...

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Al Gore to Cash In On Climate Crisis Some More

Dylan and Ethan Ris — 2009-03-24T14:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Environment, Humor, Al Gore

Al Gore's first book, Earth in the Balance, scored him the vice presidency.

His second book, An Inconvenient Truth, garnered him a movie tie-in, an Oscar, and a Nobel Peace Prize.

So why on this pollution-scarred earth would he stop there? He is, of course, now writing a third book, which will presumably elevate him to Pope.

Al Gore will return to the subject of global warming in a new book to be released by Rodale Inc., the publisher said in a news release. The book, "Our Choice," will return to the milieu of Mr. Gore's 2006 bestseller, "An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It."

In a statement, Mr. Gore said the book would offer plans to address the climate crisis while creating jobs and promoting economic growth, developed through meetings that Mr. Gore has held with scientists, engineers and policy experts.

Rodale said the book would be published on Nov. 3 and would be printed on 100 percent recycled paper. It said that all proceeds from the book would be donated to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit group.

For those of you who just can't wait until November 3, we're going to go ahead and give you some juicy details right now:

The book will be dedicated to Tipper, will feature size-14 font and plenty of pictures (mostly of polar bears), will have a lot chapters about "cap and trade" (we don't know what it is, but it gives us a headache when we hear about it), and will make repeated off-topic references to the Florida Recount.

Needless to say, it will be Made on a Mac[TM].

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Obama To Govern - And Sign - From the Left

Dylan and Ethan Ris — 2009-01-26T14:11:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, John McCain, Al Gore, Bill Clinton

When Barack Obama entered the Capitol on Inauguration Day to enact his first piece of legislation, he let his liberal mind guide his body as he signed his name.

In other words, he used his left hand...

"That's right. I'm a lefty. Get used to it," the southpaw president joked at the time.

Obama isn't alone in this distinction. Five of the past seven presidents have been left-handed: Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and now Obama. (Even recent runners-up, like Ross Perot, Bob Dole, Al Gore and John McCain, were also lefties.)

Meanwhile, the four most recent right-handed presidents - Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Bush - left office with the lowest approval ratings in presidential history. Coincidence?

The Washington Post posits that being left-handed might actually be an attribute to presidents, because mastery of language is so integral to their public perception.

For nearly all right-handers, language abilities reside exclusively on one side of the brain -- usually the left, which controls the right hand. But one in seven lefties process language on both sides of the brain, possibly because using their left hands during childhood stimulated the development of the right half. So Reagan, Bill Clinton and Obama may have left-handedness to thank for their legendary speaking abilities.

And it goes beyond presidents. Some of the most legendary figures in history have been left-handed, including Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Beethoven, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin.

Then again, so are/were Jack the Ripper, the Boston Strangler, Fidel Castro and Osama bin Laden.

Conclusion: The next U.S. President will be either Michaelangelo's corpse or Osama bin Laden. Given the nature of criticisms leveled at both McCain and Obama this past cycle, some would say it's more of the same.

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Inconvenient Fit: Al Gore Not Interested in Cabinet Post?

David Knowles — 2008-12-09T10:05:00+00:00

Filed under: Barack Obama, Featured Stories, Environment, Al Gore, Obama Administration

Via Politico comes word that Al Gore, the man who won the popular vote for the presidency in 2000, is not interested in an Obama Administration cabinet post:

When Obama and Joe Biden sit down with Al Gore at noon Tuesday in Chicago, they'll be talking issues--not making the pitch for the former vice-president to return to government service, say transition officials and those close to Gore.

So, forget about seeing Gore as Secretary of the Interior or Energy. Why doesn't Gore want a job with the new team? Well, perhaps he thinks he can be a more effective advocate for the environment as an outsider who still has the ear of the president. Let's face it, Gore has an ambitious agenda when it comes to climate control, and he may not have relished the prospect of being reigned in by a boss who doesn't have the resources to deliver all that Gore would have been pushing.

Obama's focus right now is squarely on job creation. He wants to harness the potential of the green revolution to supply a lot of them, and that's why he's meeting with Gore today. But there may be times when short-term boosting of the labor force means shying away from the most environmentally friendly policies. As a result, there will be times when Obama and Gore don't see eye to eye. By remaining autonomous, Gore won't have to compromise his positions, and can keep applying pressure on the administration. The separation will also allow Gore the time to promote a new movie or two.

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Bill Richardson: To Beard or Not To Beard?

David Knowles — 2008-12-04T10:53:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Humor, Al Gore, Obama Administration

That is the question, and Barack Obama, who introduced Bill Richardson as his pick for Secretary of Commerce yesterday, has an answer. Compare and contrast:

Before and After:

The president-elect thinks Richardson should never have shaved it off:

"I think it was a mistake for him to get rid of it," the president-elect said. "I thought that the whole western, rugged look was really working for him. For some reason, maybe because it was scratchy when he kissed his wife, he was forced to get rid of it. But we're deeply disappointed with the lost of his beard."

Would Obama have offered the Commerce post to Bill if he'd known the beard would go bye-bye? Will the scruff start returning to Richardson's cheeks? Have your say, America:

View Poll

Apparently, just as it was back in the 60's, growing a beard remains a form of protest. Here's Richardson on why he initially went from boy scout to outlaw biker:

"After the campaign, I grew a beard as a rebelion against those consultants who told me I had to comb my hair, shave, lose weight. I said, 'You know, I'm gonna do what I want now."

So why, oh why did Richardson sell out again to the man and his razor? For that matter, why did Al Gore give up his Cheeks of Darkness, grown during his Conradian journey up river following his loss to W. in 2000? So many crucial beard questions, so little time.

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Gore Pushes 10-Year Energy Plan

Mark Impomeni — 2008-07-18T09:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Breaking News, Environment, Al Gore, Energy

Former Vice-President turned environmental activist Al Gore issued a challenge to politicians and policy makers yesterday. Gore wants the United States to commit to producing 100% of its electric power from renewable sources, like wind, solar, clean coal, and geothermal energy, within 10 years. Gore cited the rising cost of oil as well as the alleged impact of burning fossil fuels on global warming as reasons for his call to action. Currently, renewable sources account for about nine percent of the 3.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity produced and consumed in the United States.

"I have never seen an opportunity for the country like the one that's emerging now. I hope to contribute to a new political environment in this country that will allow the next president to do what I think the next president is going to think is the right thing to do. But the people have to play a part."

The people's part, of course, will come in the form of providing the money for the construction of all the new infrastructure that will be needed to implement Gore's plan. Gore's group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, says that the total cost of the project could range from 1.5 to 3 trillion dollars over 30 years. Gore dismissed the potential cost as, "an expensive investment but not compared to the rising cost of continuing to invest in fossil fuels."

Curiously absent from Gore's plan is a call to increase the amount of electricity produced from nuclear power. The U.S. generates about 20 percent of its power from nuclear plants, which produce no greenhouse gases, yet Gore does not advocate for more production from this most environmentally friendly method. He also did not point out the fact that the World Meteorological Organization has said that global average temperatures have not increased, and may have actually decreased, over the last ten years. Lastly, Gore did not address the fact that fossil fuel power sources will be needed to back up alternative sources like wind and solar, which cannot be adjusted to meet peak demands and do not generate power when there is no wind or when it is dark.

Gore's plan is mainly a political one. It is intended not to actually sponsor and produce power generation projects, but to gather politicians behind a policy goal. Reducing the nation's dependence on foreign sources of energy is a worthy one, but it comes with a hefty price tag and necessary reductions in Americans' lifestyles. Gore should be given credit for addressing the costs and acknowledging their magnitude. But it is far from certain that global warming is an unnatural phenomenon that humans could possibly have any impact on. Despite the global warming activists' attempts to shut down debate on the question of man's role in the planet's climatory changes, many scientists and average citizens remain skeptical. This is why advocates like Gore need to issue grand challenges and make ever bolder and more dire predictions.

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The Gore Endorsement

Christopher Weber — 2008-06-17T09:40:00+00:00

Filed under: Endorsements, Democrats, Barack Obama, Breaking News, 2008 President, Al Gore

Al Gore came out for Barack Obama last night at a giant rally in Detroit. Some estimates had the crowd at 20,000. The former vice president gave a fairly rousing speech that threatened to overshadow Obama's (where were these oratorical skills back when he was running for president?). Watch for yourself:

What do you think? Does Gore's endorsement mean anything for Obama in the long run?

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Al Gore to Endorse Obama Tonight

Denise Williams — 2008-06-16T15:11:00+00:00

Filed under: Endorsements, 2008 President, Al Gore

Al finally gets off the pot...

Just when I thought it was going to be a slow campaign news day, I just heard a report on MSNBC that Al Gore will be endorsing Obama tonight, in person, at a rally in Detroit. The report also states that Gore will request contributors to his Web site, algore.com, so pitch in money as well as time to the Obama campaign.

Obviously, this endorsement would have been better months back, but it can never hurt to have it. I'm not a believer that any single endorsement from any one person can make a difference, but this sort of ties up some loose ends in the march toward party unity.

I'm sure you PUMA's will disagree.

From the email that I just got from Gore:

Over the past 18 months, Barack Obama has united a movement. He knows change does not come from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or Capitol Hill. It begins when people stand up and take action.

With the help of millions of supporters like you, Barack Obama will bring the change we so desperately need in order to solve our country's most pressing problems.

If you've already contributed to this campaign, I ask that you consider making another contribution right now. If you haven't, please take the next step and own a piece of this campaign today:

On the issues that matter most, Barack Obama is clearly the right choice to lead our nation.

We have a lot of work to do in the next few months to elect Barack Obama president, and it begins by making a contribution to this campaign today.

Thank you for joining me,

Al Gore

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Gore to Make Inconvenient Sequel

Jay Allbritton — 2008-04-23T13:31:00+00:00

Filed under: Environment, Al Gore

Al Gore told The British newspaper The Sun that he plans to make a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.

Despite the fact that most people view the climate crisis as a very serious issue, Gore believes that little has actually changed since his 2006 hit documentary helped move global climate change to the forefront of international politics. He cited a recent study that showed the problem ranked near the bottom of a long list of people's concerns.

"I remember one poll," Gore said, "where it came under dog litter. People are more likely to respond to problems that can be felt - terrorism, traffic jams, anything that activates the responses in an immediate way."

In the interview Gore reiterated his plan to stay out of elected office. Instead, he plans to lead a robust grass roots movement in the United States designed to reinvent the infrastructure of the country with the most adverse effect on the environment.

"When the US does change on this issue," Gore said, "it will have a tremendous impact on the rest of the world. It's hard to imagine China and India changing their position if the United States does not."

China will surpass the US as the world's worst greenhouse gas polluter this year.
Gore's sentiment is undermined by his reluctance to hold celebrities personally accountable. The Sun's reporter Clodagh Hartley criticized Gore for not suggesting that "the Hollywood Establishment" rein in "their lavish jet-setting and gas-guzzling lifestyles." When asked about David Beckham, who has, according to Hartley, the world's worst carbon footprint in particular Gore said, "I don't think that's my place. I don't want to get into personally criticising anyone."

He should. The problem is every bit as real and daunting as Gore says. As long as the vast army of cooperate lobbyists stand in the way, the world needs a prophetic voice unafraid of alienating anyone, even wealthy allies, with inconvenient truths.

Bobby Kennedy, Jr. lays out a strategic approach to addressing the climate crisis in his recent article in Vanity Fair's green issue.

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Gore Invests Heavily in Climate Campaign

Jay Allbritton — 2008-03-31T10:28:00+00:00

Filed under: Environment, Al Gore

Last week some of Al Gore's critics interpreted his decision not to accept climate-change skeptic J. Scott Armstrong's Global Warming Challenge--a $10,000 bet on whose 10-year forecast is more accurate, with the money going to charity--as a lack of willingness by the former Vice President to put his money where his mouth is on the environment.

Gore refused the bet, but he has since laid those doubts to rest with the announcement of an aggressive and expensive public-advocacy campaign to which he's contributing millions of dollars he earned from the movie An Inconvenient Truth, the book of the same title, a variety of prizes and awards he's won for his work on climate awareness and his salary from the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers.From The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public-advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

The Alliance for Climate Protection's "we" campaign will employ online organizing and television ads on shows ranging from "American Idol" to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

It highlights the extent to which Americans' growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into policy changes, Gore said last week.

(more)

As to why he's taking this tack, Gore said, "I've tried everything else I know to try. The way to solve this crisis is to change the way the public thinks about it."

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Gore?

Dave — 2008-03-30T00:02:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Breaking News, 2008 President, Al Gore

With apologies to Queen, is this the real life, or is this just fantasy?

I'm voting for fantasy, but that doesn't mean that the Gore option won't burn a bunch of news cycles between here and the convention. Jay posted on Thursday, and the story has gotten a few more legs since then. This article is sourced to "former Gore aides":

Former Gore aides now believe he could emerge as a compromise candidate acceptable to both camps at the party's convention in Denver during the last week of August.

Two former Gore campaign officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that a scenario first mapped out by members of Mr Gore's inner circle last May now has a sporting chance of coming true.

Added to this, we have the chin-scratcher of Gore's appearance on 60 Minutes. "Why now?", inquiring minds would like to know.

To the former Gore aides, this could be anything from a couple of guys speculating with a reporter at a bar, to a serious study commissioned by Al himself. Or anything in between. Given his unwillingness to oxygenate any presidential rumors so far, I'd bet on the former.

The big point to remember about an Al Gore candidacy is that we'd go from either Hillary or Barack supporters being very unhappy, to both Hillary and Barack unhappiness. Both sides would have to be convinced that Gore is an acceptable alternative to their candidate winning in their own right. And we're not there yet at all. Barack has a lead in the delegates, and Hillary still thinks she owns the nomination.

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Klein Suggests Gore-Obama a Possibility

Jay Allbritton — 2008-03-27T16:08:00+00:00

Filed under: Democrats, Barack Obama, 2008 President, Al Gore

Mike Allen of The Politico dropped a tantalizing nugget in a post this morning. It appears Time Magazine's Joe Klein is floating a Gore-Obama ticket as a possible resolution to the fight over the Democratic presidential nomination.

The pitch from Klein goes like this:

Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. ... All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party-and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? ... A prominent fund raiser told me, 'Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place.

A former Gore adviser told Allen that a much more likely scenario would involve Gore making a strong closing argument to the super delegates for one candidate or another.

This week, Democratic Representative Tim Mahoney stoked Gore-mania when he told a Florida paper, "If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don't be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket."

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Gore Won't Put His Money Where His Mouth Is

Justin Paulette — 2008-03-27T09:19:00+00:00

Filed under: Environment, Al Gore

Today is the deadline of the Global Warming Challenge - a bet proposed by J. Scott Armstrong, a climate-change skeptic who doubts the varsity of climate forecasting models upon which Al Gore had based many of his dooms-day predictions.

The challenge dictates that Armstrong and Gore each put $10,000 into a Charitable Trust Fund. Armstrong then proposes to forecast temperature change more accurately than any climate model Gore chooses over a 10-year period. Armstrong forecasts that global mean temperature will not change.

Gore insisted that he was too busy to enter into the bet by the original deadline, so Armstrong extended until today. Gore has failed to accept.

Of course, this entire ordeal is a political stunt. The cash involved is minuscule and the bet requires an excessive duration. However, it does illuminate a single point: Gore is willing to wager taxpayer money on his wild, the-sky-is-falling hypothesis, but he feels that personal risks are beneath his merit. I commend Mr. Gore for refusing to wager his wealth on such a bet, and hope that voters do likewise whenever the issue is brought before them on a ballot.

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Weather Channel Founder Disses Weather Channel

Tommy Christopher — 2008-03-04T11:20:00+00:00

Filed under: John McCain, Featured Stories, Environment, Media, Al Gore

The Business & Media Institute reports that Weather Channel founder John Coleman, a well-known global warming skeptic, has come out swinging against his creation, and against the movement to mitigate the effects of climate change:

"The Weather Channel had great promise, and that's all gone now because they've made every mistake in the book on what they've done and how they've done it and it's very sad," Coleman said. "It's now for sale and there's a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced - several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let's hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information."

Setting aside the tornado of grammatical problems here, I'm inclined to agree with him on one count. Unfortunately, if The Weather Channel restricted itself to giving "useful weather information", its programming would consist of a 5-minute bloc, repeated all day long.

After the jump, a few more nuggets from Coleman, a little bit of analysis, a rebuttal by John McCain(?), and maybe a 5-day forecast.

First, a little more Coleman:

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called "the fraud of global warming." He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.

"[I] have a feeling this is the opening," Coleman said. "If the lawyers will take the case - sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming."

Now, the fact that Coleman is only slightly more qualified than Willard Scott to go up against the 928 peer-reviewed scientific studies that agree, to varying degrees, that global warming is a scientifically observable phenomenon, and that man-made activities are a major contributor to it. Sure, the eggheads have been wrong before, and flat-globe salesmen paid the price.

This, however, cannot be your entire argument. Coleman has published many briefs "debunking" global warming, but a common theme here is that the guys with the fancy "degrees" and "credentials" have a vested interest in causing a global panic, and he has colorful charts that wouldn't make it past USA Today's Lifestyle editor. The notion that most scientists in the world are in this for the research grants is ludicrous, since it stands to reason that there would be plenty of dough around to fund debunkers.

Coleman's case depends heavily on science's inherent limitations. Global Warming is provable, but once proven, its effects on us will be irreversible. He also relies on those limitations, including historical climate data that predates our ability to reliably measure or record it. Really, we're using climate measurements from the "Viking" period?

Many of his charts rely on a layman's ignorance of science. I'm a l ayman, but I know that if you chart solar activity against Earth's temperature, they're going to largely agree, and if you stand far enough away, they'll look identical. Global warming isn't about huge divergences in temperature.

The strategy he recommends is interesting, too. He's suggesting that conservatives use "trial lawyers" to circumvent the legislative process with "frivolous lawsuits."

I hate to kick a guy when he's old and out of touch, but Coleman seems to me to be a guy who has been passed by, and he wants people to listen to him again. The fact that "Billions of dollars will change hands", but none of it into his, likely has a great deal to do with his embittered position.

There is definitely room to debate how much of global warming is in our control, but as John McCain said in the last GOP debate, if global warming turns out not to have been as large a threat as we thought, then we're only leaving our children a cleaner planet. What a scam.

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Report: Gore Will NOT Endorse During Primaries

Denise Williams — 2008-02-11T20:40:00+00:00

Filed under: Endorsements, 2008 President, Humor, Al Gore

While the Democratic contenders for POTUS camp out at John Edwards door and promise God only knows what to God only knows what SuperDelegates, that grand prize, the Big Kahuna, the golden ring of that carousel called Al Gore will just have to wait!

CNN's Political Ticker's sources say that his multiple-awardness will withhold his endorsement until after the primaries are over:

He's the most prominent Democrat yet to take a side in the presidential election, but two sources close to Al Gore tell us not to expect the former vice president to endorse either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama any time during the primary season.

The sources say Gore talks with both Clinton and Obama, and is on good terms with both. But with Sen. John Kerry and Bill Clinton both aligned to a candidate, Gore has a role to serve as the neutral elder statesman in the party.

In the meantime, the candidates and their surrogates can keep mining the Supers [TM] for convention votes, like this 21 y/o SuperDelegate from Wisconsin, Jason Rae:

From ABC News:

Rae was elected as a DNC member at the Wisconsin state party convention in June 2004. He was 17 years old at the time but there are no party rules that say a DNC member has to be of voting age. Rae ran against and defeated the president of the state firefighters' union and a state legislator.

Rae has been called on his cell phone by former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who tried to woo him to the Clinton side and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who was pushing for Rae to endorse Obama.

If you're burning to know what Supers[TM] pledged to the candidates already, 2008 Democratic Convention Watch has a comprehensive list here.

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